New York Subway resumes 24-hour service after one year

EFE.- The New York City subway, the busiest in the United States, resumed its 24-hour service on Monday, a year after authorities agreed to a night closure for disinfection wagons as a measure to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

On May 6 of last year, the doors of all stations closed for the first time in the history of this means of transport at 1 a.m. local time, until 5 a.m. A closure that has been relaxing with the reopening measures that accompany vaccination.

The trainas New Yorkers often call it, it was closed in recent weeks between 2 and 4 in the morning, until today’s reopening, which marks the end of the largest temporary closure in its history.

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According to the authorities, the wagons will continue to be disinfected despite the return to continuous operations and the use of masks will remain mandatory.

During the first months of the pandemic, the number of passengers plummeted by more than 90%, but on April 8, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced that the number of subway users reached two million a day for the first time, a figure still well below the 5.5 million people who habitually used the subway before the pandemic.

Its reopening 24 hours coincides with the end of mandatory closure of the terraces of bars and restaurants at midnight and is part of a package of measures to restore normalcy announced by the state governor, Andrew Cuomo, on May 3.

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As part of this initiative to reactivate the economy in New York, as of this Wednesday, the capacity restrictions that have prevailed for the hotel industry, leisure and many other businesses such as retail stores, gyms or hairdressers will end.

The new rules in New York have been coordinated with the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut and they also raise the limit of participants in outdoor meetings from 200 to 500 people and indoors from 100 to 250.

Large venues – from stadiums to theaters – will be able to exceed those figures if they require vaccination tests or negative tests and have space to maintain the required distances.

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